A New Moon
by United States of Awesomness
Summary: Varian learns to accept that he would spend the rest of his life rotting in a cell under the palace of Corona. Then /she/ came. She was different from when he last saw her but no less beautiful. (Kind of spoilers to Destines Collide)


There were laughs and jests when Varian had first been taken into the dungeon. Most came from the first floor, petty thieves and pickpocketers, all of them doing less than a week until they "learned their lesson". Their jests died quickly when Varian was taken down a level. The second level stored more troublesome criminals, grander scales of thievery, kidnapping, undue acts of violence. A couple of them tried to poke fun at Varian, most just wondering how a kid that young had made it to the second level. Whatever teases the few who had spoken up were about to utter died on their lips when everyone watched him taken down another level still, leaving the floor eerily silent. No one jested on the last level of the dungeon, these were not jesters. These were murders, anarchists, terrorists. Men and women driven by treason and just a touch of insanity. No, they didn't make fun of new prisoners being brought into their cell block.

Varian has since learned that talking between the cells was not uncommon and strangely _normal_ for the very _abnormal_ people that occupied said cells. It took a while but soon Varian was speaking too. He shared with them why he was there, earning an applause that honestly made him flush. They all thought he was amazing, they harrowed him something of a hero for trying to put the royal family in their place and _almost_ succeeding.

As terrible as he knew it was to admit, Varian had found a sort of kinship with the shadows in the dark cell block that he spoke to day after day. More than he ever felt with Rapunzel, than Eugene, than anyone in Old Corona. After spending what felt like forever alone in a basement with nothing but the still figure of his father to talk to, it was nice to pretend that everything was normal and talk to people who didn't think him crazy, even if it was from behind cell bars.

He stopped counting the days he had been down there after the first week. The people on the third level never made it back up to the palace again, that was just how it was. Varian had panicked a little bit when he'd first heard that from one of the other prisoners, shocking even himself with his willing show of such raw emotion, but he'd soon given up on hoping to get out. In the back of his mind he knew that Rudiger would probably be able to get him a key and help him escape, but where was he supposed to go after that? What would he do after that? He would just rather stay in his cell surrounded by people that understood him.

That was until _she_ came. The blue glow that entered the cell block put everyone on edge, even more did the black spikes that thrust out of the ground. She looked like she floated in but she was nothing like Varian remembered her.

"Cassandra…?" He couldn't help the uncertainty in his voice. In any other occasion, he would have been harsh, spiteful towards her or anyone else in Rapunzel's posse but he could tell something had changed, something big.

Her body was adorned with the same black rocks that stuck out of the ground, wrapped around her body like a solid layer of armor. There were spikes reaching down her shoulders, others climbing up her single gloved hand. Over her chest was a thrumming blue stone, throbbing like a heartbeat. She looked menacing. More than that, her once bushy, jet black hair was now glowing an electric blue, lighting up the cell block like it never had been before.

"Let's go Varian, we've got work to do," Cassandra said, raising an arm towards the bars of his cell. Black rocks shot up from the ground, tearing the metal bars to shreds. A flick of her wrist sunk the rocks back into the ground, leaving a pile of rubble where the door to the cell used to be.

"What's going on?" Even as he asked the question, Varian's mind was going into overdrive. Cassandra was controlling the black rocks. She could move them, or rather get rid of them. She could...

Cassandra stepped over the rubble and knelt down in front of Varian, a feral grin on her lips that he had never seen on her before, "I've taken on the privileges of my _special_ heritage, something that had been stolen from me until very recently. I intend to take back what is rightfully mine, and you are going to help me," She said before her grin softened into something Varian remembered of her, "But first we're going to go free your father."

Varian felt like crying, it was all he could do to thrust himself forward and wrap his arms around Cassandra's neck, "Okay," He said airily, sounding hopeful for the first time in too long.


End file.
